Landowners near airport challenge eminent domain seizure

The owners of 30 acres of land seized two years ago by Clark County through eminent domain to clear a glide path for a new McCarran Airport runway are asking a District Court judge today for return of their property.

The owners allege in court documents that Clark County listed health and safety reasons for taking the land on Tropicana Avenue, but now is proposing to turn the land over to the J.A. Tiberti Co. for development into a hotel and golf course.

Once a judge determines the value of the land, which the owners had been using for a mobile home park, the change of ownership would actually take place.

Attorney Terry Coffing, representing the landowners, says in court documents that the price should be based on the land's value as a potential site for a hotel-casino. In its eminent domain proceedings, the county has been arguing that the price should be based on the assumption that the land is "not suitable for any significant development."

Sources say the county's appraisal is about $11 million while the owners see the value at about $25 million.

"What was once a fairly typical eminent domain case has now effectively become a redevelopment plan that benefits a private party," Coffing said.

The law, he argues, requires that property owners be given the first chance to develop the land in a manner compatible with Federal Aviation Administration safety requirements.

The county has said the condemnation of the land ago was necessitated by the addition of Runway 19, which would have resulted in airplanes flying directly over the mobile homes.

Coffing noted that the owners never disagreed with the safety measure.

Neither is there a dispute that FAA guidelines permit a golf course complex as an acceptable use for the land. A golf driving range already sits on an adjacent piece of property that was condemned several years ago because of McCarran's expansion at that time.

But the property owners argue that the county is spending millions to take the land rather than giving them the opportunity to redevelop it themselves or deal directly with developers.

Coffing has charged that the county is "doing indirectly what the law forbids it to do directly ... cloaking an impermissible redevelopment in the guise of public use."

The property owners include former State Republican Party Chairperson Marilyn Gubler, Joseph and Margaret Loveless, and the heirs of Las Vegas pioneer businessman Maxwell Kelch. They have also have charged in court documents that the county misled the owners in an attempt to illegally obtain the land at bargain prices.

Property owners didn't challenge the condemnation because it was believed at the time that the seizure served a public purpose, although litigation continues on the value of the property, according to Coffing.

The owners didn't learn about the hotel and golf course plan until reading newspaper reports of a Feb. 3 County Commission hearing giving the director of aviation the go-ahead to deal with Tiberti Co.

"The county's present actions are not eminent domain but rather an impermissible redevelopment that can only benefit the private parties who have curried favor with McCarran Airport and the Clark County commissioners," Coffing contends in court documents.

He said he will ask District Judge Sally Loehrer to determine if the seizure of the land to be redeveloped as a golf course complex is justified by any public necessity.

Coffing noted that the county currently is developing a mobile home park to relocate the residents of the Las Vegas and Treasure Lodge mobile home parks.

"This action certainly could have been accomplished without the filing of an eminent domain proceeding," and divesting the owners of their land, the attorney stated in court documents.

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